Delhi-Katra e-way’s Amritsar leg not only NHAI project hit by land hurdles in Punjab. There’s 15 more

With the 30-km section of the expressway's Amritsar spur put on hold, the project, which has been facing land acquisition challenges since 2022, is expected to get delayed further.

File photo of Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann and Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari reviewing work on the Delhi-Katra Expressway in Amritsar | ANI

Chandigarh: The National Highways Authority of India has cancelled the tender for a 30-km section of the Amritsar spur of the coveted Delhi–Amritsar-Katra Expressway due to its inability to acquire land. The Amritsar spur—99 km total length—will connect the holy city to the Delhi-Katra stretch of the expressway. 

With the 30-km section put on hold, the Amritsar spur, which has been facing land acquisition challenges since 2022, is expected to get delayed further. The Amritsar spur is not the only NHAI project stalled by land acquisition challenges. Landowners in Punjab are demanding higher prices for their land under acquisition by the NHAI for different projects. 

The work on portions of 15 of 37 projects in Punjab remains stalled, according to a letter written by the NHAI this year, seeking assistance from the Punjab government. The NHAI told the government that of 37 projects running along 1,344 km in Punjab and costing over Rs 50,000 crore, it has failed to acquire land for work on a total of 103 km that concerns 15 projects.

In the letter, NHAI regional officer Vipnesh Sharma told the state chief secretary K.A.P. Sinha that the “contractors of the NHAI have now started writing to the NHAI to de-scope the parcels of land, where the physical possession could not be completed, and this is a fact that even a single gap in greenfield corridor (Delhi–Amritsar-Katra Expressway) would render the entire corridor inoperative. The purpose of constructing the greenfield corridor would be defeated.”

 A 26 February communication from Ceigall—the company granted the contract for the Amritsar spur—stated that the NHAI had terminated the May 2022 agreement “as the land acquisition was not achieved significantly for the project stretch”. Yogesh Kamra, who heads the Amritsar Vikas Manch, an NGO instrumental in persuading the Union transport ministry to add the Amritsar spur, has released the cancellation letter on social media platform ‘X’. 

When contacted, senior NHAI officials told ThePrint on condition of anonymity that the cancellation of the contract will likely delay the construction of the 30-km stretch. “Since the rates of the raw materials increase over the years, contracts, when delayed, do not remain viable. The contract will be re-tendered but only after land is made available,” said a senior NHAI officer, adding that despite the best efforts of the highways authority and the state government, they could acquire land for only 12 km of the 30 km stretch. 

“The land owners are demanding an exorbitant cost for the land—which the NHAI can not accede to. But that does not mean the entire project is on hold. Wherever we have land, we are going ahead with the construction,” added the officer.

Kamra told ThePrint that the 30-km stretch was one of the three contract packages tendered by the NHAI for the construction of the 99-km Amritsar spur. “The other two packages, one 41 km long from Nakodar in Jalandhar to Dhunda village in Tarn Taran and the other 28 km long from village Manawala Khurd in Tarn Taran to Harsha Chhina in Amritsar, are under construction. What stands cancelled is the tender for the 30-km middle stretch from Dhunda to Manawala. So, even if the other two stretches are complete, the middle section would be missing, delaying the completion of the entire spur. It means it will not be possible for the NHAI to complete the project even by 2026.”

“It was with great difficulty that our organisation convinced the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to add a spur from the expressway to Amritsar so that our city is connected to Delhi on one side and Jammu-Katra on the other. In the original plan, the Delhi-Katra expressway had connectivity only to Jalandhar. Even if the whole project is complete, the Amritsar connectivity has been indefinitely delayed,” added Kamra.

The multi-state Delhi–Amritsar–Katra Expressway, conceived in 2019 as part of the Bharatmala Pariyojana, is a four-lane access-controlled corridor connecting Delhi to Jammu and Kashmir, passing through Haryana and Punjab. The total length of the expressway is 669 km. The expressway begins at Haryana’s Bahadurgarh and terminates at J&K’s Katra. Of the total length, a little less than half, 295.51 km, passes through Punjab. 

Once complete, the expressway will reduce the Delhi-Katra distance from the current 727 km to only 588 km and the travel time from 14 hours to six hours. The travelling time between Delhi and Amritsar will drop from the current eight hours to only four hours. Land acquisition for the project started in 2020.

NHAI’s land acquisition troubles

Land acquisition for the Amritsar spur was halted by farmers—led by various Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU)—at multiple points in Patiala, Sangrur, Pathankot, Malerkotla, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Amritsar and Tarn Taran. In many places, the farmers staged protests against land acquisition after receiving the compensation. 

Faced with stiff resistance from the farmers, including attacks on contractors and their staff, the NHAI, in June last year, sought police protection from the state to help it take possession of the acquired land for the expressway and other pending projects. 

In a 10 August 2024 letter to CM Bhagwant Singh Mann, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said that the ongoing issues with land acquisition, besides the law-and-order situation, had led some NHAI contractors to terminate their contracts. 

The NHAI also approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the matter. The HC, in November last year, ordered the state chief secretary and DGP to ensure that the NHAI gets the required land free of encumbrance. 

In most places, the NHAI agreed to pay enhanced compensation to the landowners to resolve the situation. Sources in the NHAI added that the compensation was increased in several areas from Rs 12 lakh an acre to nearly Rs 85 lakh an acre. 

“The NHAI has paid enhanced compensation for those pieces of land, which are locationally more expensive. However, the landowners in the Tarn Taran area have demanded the same enhanced rates for land that does not have that much market price. The logic of the farmers is that since the farmers in Ludhiana have received the enhanced rates, the same rates should apply to the entire stretch of the expressway—which can not happen,” said the NHAI official.

“Besides enhanced compensation, the NHAI has agreed to increase the number of passes in many places and also agreed to the demand of farmers to increase the height of the passes to 5.5 m beyond the sanctioned height,” added the NHAI officer.

The Punjab government, however, hopes to arrive at some solution in the coming months. “In some places in Tarn Taran and Amritsar, land acquisition continues to be a challenge, but we are working with the NHAI to resolve these at the earliest,” said Ravi Bhagat, principal secretary of the state Public Works Department, speaking to ThePrint Thursday. The public works department is coordinating with the NHAI to complete the expressway.

The NHAI said the main projects facing delays included the Beas-Dera Baba Nanak, Amritsar-Una, Amritsar Bypass, Abohar-Fazilka, Amritsar-Bathinda and Moga-Bajakhana road sections. The NHAI cancelled contracts worth over Rs 3,000 crore for the Southern Ludhiana Bypass, Ludhiana Rupnagar Expressway, and Ludhiana Bathinda Expressway last year due to the non-availability of land. However, early this year, the Punjab government ensured the NHAI of land possession, awakening hopes of their revival.

Last month, the NHAI again contracted out the six-lane greenfield Southern Ludhiana Bypass, whose construction will be under the hybrid annuity model, to Ceigall.

(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)